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Just a million kilometers away

Emily Lakdawalla

Written by Emily Lakdawalla
January 13, 2008

Here's the latest photo from Mercury (see my previous post for the three images preceding this one). There are a lot more features visible in this photo than there have been in previous photos; MESSENGER is getting close enough to resolve featuresthat are the size of the craters peppering Mercury's ancient surface.

MESSENGER approaches Mercury

NASA / JHUAPL / CIW

MESSENGER approaches Mercury
MESSENGER snapped this image of a crescent Mercury through its narrow-angle camera on January 12 at 09:06 UTC when it was about 1.2 million kilometers from the planet.
Identifying craters in MESSENGER's Mercury approach images

NASA / JHUAPL / CIW / Solar System Simulator / Jason Perry

Identifying craters in MESSENGER's Mercury approach images

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